Quilt-As-You-Go Venice Placemats from June Tailor in autumn colors add seasonal flair to your table décor.

Quilt-As-You-Go Venice Placemats from June Tailor are a quick, fun way to make placemats – once you finish sewing, the quilting is already done! Add some binding and you are ready to enjoy them.

Supplies used:

• June Tailor Batting Quilt As You Go Cotton/Polyester Placemat Venice
• Quilting supplies – Cutting mat, rotary cutter, acrylic ruler, fine patchwork pins, marking tool, fabric shears, and a Hera marker
• Mary Ellen’s Best Press or June Tailor Starch Savvy
• Fabric basting spray – I used Odif 505 Spray & Fix
• Clover Mini Iron or Dritz Iron Mighty Travel Steam (optional)
• Pressing mat – I used a Pam Damour Notions Magic Wool Pressing Mat (optional)
• Hand sewing supplies for binding – needle, thread, thimble (optional), needle threader (optional)

I started by trimming the printed batting 1 inch from the edge on all sides and cutting a backing fabric piece a bit larger for all six placemats. The printed lines are for fabric placement and trimming – not sewing lines.

With the backing wrong side up and the batting centered on top, I lightly sprayed 505 Spray & Fix between the layers, one half at a time.

I selected a variety of Kaffe Fassett and Westminster prints with a fall palette. The instructions recommend spraying them well with starch or sizing. I used Mary Ellen’s Best Press. For a pleasing scrappy effect, I chose a variety of prints including floral, organic, dots, and stripes but eliminated fabrics with white and very light colors because they stood out too much.

Before sewing, fabrics were auditioned and placed in order to achieve a balanced scrappy look. Distinctive fabrics such as dots and stripes were positioned on opposite sides and apart from each other.

Using the printed lines as guides and following the pattern instructions. I started sewing the individual pieces using a 1/4″ seam allowance. It is best to sew only to the line and back stitch – sewing further makes it hard to trim the excess later.

After each piece was sewn on, I pressed it open away from the seam. The pattern recommends finger pressing but I preferred to use a small iron – being careful to not touch the batting. It worked well to keep the iron and wool pressing mat next to my sewing machine.

The quilt-as-you-go technique is great because the placemat is being quilted as the pieces are sewn.

Once all the small pieces were sewn on, I used a quilt marker to make a straight line for trimming – using the printed line on the batting. It helped to fold back the top and bottom piece to align the ruler.

Once the lines were marked…

I trimmed the pieces with fabric shears along marked line which aligned with the printed line on the batting.

After sewing the small pieces, the remaining sections were sewn. This photo shows the pocket fabric being auditioned. I really wanted to use this Westminster fabric I ordered – not realizing it came from  somebody’s stash from 2012 and shipped from France! Gotta love etsy.com!

I decided to use the stripe I had planned to use for the binding because it contrasted better with the adjacent fabric – and selected a solid rust fabric for the binding.

Using the outer printed lines on the batting and a ruler, I carefully squared up the placemats. Looks messy at this point but…

much better when the placemat was trimmed.

Eager to finish, I sewed the binding on four of the placemats. But as I looked at the placemats, I realized I forgot to quilt the empty green spaces – and did not like the way these areas  puckered without quilting lines.

So, I partially removed part of the binding on the four placemats, and …

used a decorative stitch to quilt lines in the green areas – down the center of the green stripes and every 1-1/2″ in the pocket area. A Hera Marker worked well for marking the lines. I lifted the pockets and sewed from top to bottom using the Bernina #4 Serpentine stitch and a variegated thread.

I was able to resew the binding in place with no difficulty (first time I tried that!). I love quilt-as-you-go and scrappy quilting – so this was a fun, quick project finished just in time for autumn!